Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) apparatuses are diagnostic imaging apparatuses for medical use with which a radio frequency magnetic field and a gradient magnetic field are applied to a subject placed in a static magnetic field, and echo signals generated by nuclear magnetic resonance from the subject are measured to reconstruct images. In such MRI apparatuses, the region in which the static magnetic field is uniform is a spherical region having a diameter of about 45 cm, and therefore the size of the region for which imaging can be attained by one time of measurement is usually limited to about 40 cm. Accordingly, when imaging is performed for a larger region such as the whole body, moving table imaging is performed in which imaging is performed with moving a bed (table) along the body axis direction of the subject. Types of such moving table imaging are roughly classified into two categories, i.e., those of multi-station imaging and continuous moving table imaging.
The multi-station imaging is a technique of forming a whole body image by dividing the whole body into multiple regions (stations), performing imaging of the stations and synthesizing images of the stations to create the whole body image. Since imaging for each station is performed with a fixed table, conventional imaging techniques can be used as they are. Moreover, the adjustment parameters which must be set according to imaging object such as resonance frequency, optimal irradiation intensity of the radio frequency magnetic field and gain of receiver coil can be obtained before the start of imaging of each station, like the conventional imaging. Thus, the multi-station imaging to which conventional imaging techniques can be applied as they are has already been clinically used.
On the other hand, continuous moving table imaging is a method of imaging with continuously moving the table (for example, Non-patent documents 1, 2 etc.). This method provides better imaging time efficiency compared with the multi-station imaging, since this method does not suffer from the time loss accompanying the movement of table. However, since the imaging should be performed while the subject is moving, conventional imaging techniques and image reconstruction techniques, as they are, are often inapplicable, and it has various problems to be solved for clinical application thereof.    Non-patent document 1: Kruger D G, Riederer S J, Grimm R C, Rossman P J, Continuously moving table data acquisition method for long FOV contrast-enhanced MRA and whole-body MRI, Magn. Reson. Med. 2002, 47:224-231    Non-patent document 2: Polzin J A, Kruger D G, Gurr D H, Brittain J H, Riederer S J, Correction for Gradient Nonlinearity in Continuously Moving Table MR Imaging, Magn. Reson. Med., 2004, 52:181-187